Vaccine impact studies, like this one in Bolivia, are crucial for providing high-quality evidence to countries considering the use of rotavirus vaccines by demonstrating the real-world effectiveness in similar high-mortality settings. A large clinical trial assessed the efficacy of RV1 in ten Latin American countries, most of which were upper-middle income countries. Bolivia, a high mortality, lower-middle income country, was not one of those ten countries where the clinical trial was conducted. The study released today found that vaccine performance in Bolivia was quite high and nearly as similar to the efficacy seen in the clinical trial conducted in those other ten countries (~85 percent) and clearly demonstrates that rotavirus vaccines are proven and effective in high-mortality, low and lower-middle income settings. In countries where disease burden is high, rotavirus vaccines will have a greater impact even at a lower efficacy rate, because they will substantially reduce severe disease responsible for hospitalization and death.

ROTA Council Co-chair Dr. Ciro de Quadros and member from Ghana, Dr. George Armah celebrate the outcome of the study in Bolivia and call for greater action in Africa, where more than 600 children die each day from rotavirus diarrhea, accounting for more than 50 percent of the worldwide total deaths from rotavirus diarrhea. They note the findings in the Bolivian study are broadly applicable to many low and lower-middle income African countries with high-child mortality from rotavirus and with several different rotavirus strains circulating in the population. Many of these countries are eligible to apply for GAVI funding to support rotavirus vaccine introduction, and this study provides the evidence African policymakers considering introduction need to decide if the vaccines are right for their countries.